From trash to treasure with fused plastic. This great idea came from the January 2009 issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors. The artist was Alisa Burke, sharing this great technique.

I laugh at trash to treasure...because I always save my grocery bags and use them for trash. This is not a perfect technique, but I found it very interesting. You fuse 8 grocery bags together, ink, paint, collage, stamp, stitch...whatever your heart desires and sew it into a clutch.

Here are 8 grocery bags, that were pressed between paper to fuse them. Makes a wonderful durable surface.

After I sprayed with colorwash, glimmer mists and painted with acrylics and stamps, this is what the paper looked like.

A little close up so you can see the wonderful texture.

I sewed a handmade paper to the back of the plastic for the liner.

Then haphazardly stitched all over the paper, before I did the final stitching to make the clutch. When you're finished you seal the fused plastic with a water based polyeurethane.

I see wonderful potential for this technique. Hope you enjoyed it and thanks for stopping by.

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About Me

Julie Shoemaker

Michigan, United States

I'm a wife, mother, grandmother and a full time Realtor, not in that particular order. To avoid the 'empty nest' syndrome several years ago, I started paper crafting. Thanks for stopping by my special place and for sharing in my folly.